RWBY: The Last Airbender
by Lewot
Summary: The lion turtle's gift of energybending was instantaneous . . . or was it? But what will a boy who feels conflicted about killing his worst enemy think of a world where the Grimm are killed on sight? And what dark secret lurks in the Emerald Forest? Set immediately after Volume 2 of RWBY. Cover art by my sister.
1. Chapter 1: Worldbending

**This story was written prior to the release of Volume 3, Episode 4 of RWBY, so any continuity problems caused by that or later episodes are, well, not really my fault. This is set between Volumes 2 and 3, but even so.**

 **I would dedicate this to Monty, but to be honest it's mostly Aang's story. Don't worry, though, the girls get some good scenes, so I do hope he would've liked it.**

 **I find the idea of a disclaimer a bit silly when "fanfiction" is in the website's name, but I don't own either of these shows. If you're reading this anywhere besides FFN, then someone has stolen this thievery from me.**

* * *

For a moment that seemed like an eternity, Aang was sure that he would be crushed by the sheer force of the water pressing down on him as the claw raised him toward the surface. Upon breaching it, air filled his lungs, a welcome embrace from a familiar friend. Locking eyes with the gargantuan face gazing down on him, he finally understood.

"A lion turtle," he said, and he bowed to show his respect for the city-sized, centuries-old being. Recognizing the significance of the encounter, he continued at length. "Maybe you can help me. Everyone, even my own past lives, are expecting me to end someone's life. But I don't know if I can do it."

He felt the creature's voice more than he heard it; a deep, resonant pattern in the air around him. "The true mind can weather all the lies and illusions without being lost. The true heart can tough the poison of hatred without being harmed." Slowly, the ancient one raised his other hand out of the water and moved it toward the Avatar. "Since beginningless time, darkness thrives in the void, but always yields to purifying light." Two enormous claw tips gently touched Aang's forehead and chest. With a slight hum, there was an all-consuming flash of greenish light.

* * *

Long ago, the four nations lived together in harmony.

 **R** _ed like roses fills my dreams and brings me to the place you rest_

Then, everything changed when the Fire Nation attacked.

 **W** _hite is cold and always yearning, burdened by a royal test_

Only the Avatar, master of all four elements, could stop them, but when the world needed him most, he vanished.

 **B** _lack the beast descends from shadows_

A hundred years passed, and my brother and I discovered the new Avatar, an airbender named Aang - and although his airbending skills are great, he has a lot to learn before he's ready to save anyone.

 **Y** _ellow beauty burns . . . gold_

But I believe - Aang can save the world.

* * *

 **紅白黑黃降卋神通  
** **RWBY: The Last Airbender**

* * *

Thin clouds tempered the orange and red hues of the twilit sky while the water below remained cerulean. Team RWBY occupied the ledge at the perimeter of Beacon's grounds and watched as a few of Ironwood's ships drifted through the air, presumably scanning for leftover Grimm. It was Yang who broke the silence.

"Well . . . we did it."

"We did it," Blake echoed.

"If we don't get extra credit for that, I'm going to be seriously disappointed," Weiss added.

"Weiss, a two-headed snake literally crushed a bakery," Yang shot back. "I wouldn't count on it."

"Plus, I mean," said Ruby, "we didn't solve everything. A lot of people were hurt, and . . . we still don't even know why they did this, or - who that mystery girl was."

"Well . . ." Weiss mused, "not every story has a neat and tidy ending."

"We might not have all of the answers, but we do have a lot of dangerous people behind bars," Blake offered. "And I think that's something we can be proud of."

"Yeah," agreed Ruby. "And if anyone tries something like this again, we'll be there to stop them!"

Yang stretched and laid down backwards, mumbling vague fragments of encouragement in a less than matching tone, and Zwei imitated her maneuver, albeit more enthusiastically, wiggling around on his back as she trailed off. Leaning back up slightly and putting her weight on her arm, Yang asked, "So - what now?"

Weiss responded with, "I'd suggest training for the tournament, but . . . I think we have that covered at this point."

"So then . . ."

"Uhh, time for bed?" Ruby suggested.

All four girls concurred fervently with this notion, unhurriedly rising to begin the last journey of the day, Zwei at their heels. As they ambled back toward the academy with yawns and stretches, the corgi was the first to notice something strange. Freezing in midstride, then barking twice, he slowly drew the team's attention first to himself and then to what held his own. An unearthly ball of greenish light had materialized before them, and was growing in size. When it had expanded to the point where it could have contained a person with the height of Professor Oobleck and the girth of Professor Port, a figure became visible within, although it lacked either attribute - as it became more opaque, it became clear that it was a short, thin individual - thin, but fit - a child, younger perhaps even than Ruby - a boy. A bald boy.

The boy, it seemed, opened his eyes, and the surrounding light somehow shone through them, obscuring any detail. Stranger still, in tandem with the glowing eyes, a downward-pointing arrow shape on the boy's forehead gave off the same light. The glow then began to fade, gradually returning the area to the warm twilight colors it had previously been bathed in. With the greenish glow gone, the boy's eyes looked quite normal - in fact, they were a similar gray to Ruby's - but the arrow had remained printed on his hairless head, now in a solid but pale sort of periwinkle.

The stranger and the group of girls regarded each other with similar curiosity, though something about the boy's expression suggested that he understood more about the situation than they did. Once again, it was Yang who spoke first, although "spoke" might be a bit of an exaggeration.

"Uhhhhh . . ." she inquired, which despite its simplicity captured the mood rather neatly.

"Who . . . are you?" Ruby added, just to be on the safe side.

The newcomer held up a finger and began, "I'm -" but before he could continue, his face began to contort wildly. After a few baffling seconds of this, he let out a sneeze so powerful that it not only rippled Team RWBY's clothing and Zwei's fur, but propelled him well over ten feet into the air. In the time that it took him to return to the ground, the girls exchanged many a perplexed expression; as the boy landed, the air around him seemed somehow to pull at him enough to slow his fall such that he made no more impact than a feather.

"Man, I have to stop doing that," the kid said to himself after landing. Then he looked back up at the team and said, "I'm Aang."

"Aang?" said Yang. "I'm Yang!"

Aang returned her amused grin, held up a hand for a quick wave, and said, "Hi Yang." It was around this point that most of the girls noticed that he had arrow markings on the backs of his hands similar to the one on his head.

Ruby pointed a finger at Aang and asked, "Um - how did you . . . ?"

"Get here?" he completed. "Well, you're not going to believe me, but, a giant lion turtle sent me."

Weiss folded her arms. "A _lion_ \- _turtle_ ," she repeated in a mocking tone.

"I know," Aang said, holding up his hands. "It sounds crazy." He glanced downward in apparent contemplation. "But I -" Then, looking surprised, he looked down again and began patting his clothing. "Whoa, when did I . . . ?"

With varying efforts to conceal it, the girls appraised his outfit. It had an orange and yellow color scheme and looked somehow like a relic from a bygone age, but it appeared to be comfortable, clean, and appropriately sized, leaving them confused over his confusion. He also appeared to have some kind of wooden staff strapped to his back.

"Huh," Aang shrugged, "must be part of the test."

"What test?" Yang asked.

"Well," said Aang, "I was struggling with a . . . personal dilemma . . . so the lion turtle sent me here, wherever here is. I'm supposed to learn something that might help me, but I don't know what it is."

"Well, if you knew what it was, you wouldn't need to learn it, would you?" Weiss pointed out. Leaning toward Ruby and holding a hand in front of her mouth, she whispered, "Not too bright, is he?"

"Aw, don't worry," said Ruby, pushing Weiss away and holding a finger to the sky, "we'll solve your problem!"

"What happened to sleeping?" Yang whined.

"What happened to common sense?" said Weiss. "This kid's idea of answering questions is naming random animals! What if his 'dilemma' is _literally_ a wild goose chase?" She concluded her protest with a clenched fist.

Stepping over and putting a hand on her shoulder, Blake said, "We should probably just take him to Professor Ozpin."

Weiss's eyes searched Blake's for a second before she replied, "Right. And by 'we,' you mean Ruby, right?"

"Yeah," said Yang, stretching again, "I'm with Ice Queen, I'm going to sleep. Night Sis," she waved at Ruby, and strolled past Aang.

"Why does everyone keep calling me that?!" Weiss huffed as she marched after her.

"What, 'Sis?' " Yang teased. And their arguing remained audible as they continued toward their dormitory.

Blake shook her head, then looked to Ruby. "You alright taking him?"

"Yeah," Ruby said. "No problem. Go have a catnap."

Blake shot a miffed glance between Ruby and Aang before following her departing teammates - at a distance, to avoid the arguing. Zwei barked and chased after her, causing her to quicken her pace. Aang watched the dog pass him and then turned back to Ruby.

"So," he said. "Ruby, is it?"

"Yep," she said. "Ruby Rose."

"Nice to meet you," he said, and performed a particular kind of bow with one closed fist and one flat palm touching one another.

"Riiight . . ." Ruby attempted to imitate the bow, but ended up flailing her hands uncertainly. "So, um, follow me, I guess, if that's okay with you?"

"Sure," Aang shrugged. "I don't know what I'm supposed to be doing here, so, lead the way."

"By the way . . ." Ruby pointed at the staff poking out behind Aang. "Is that your weapon?"

"Huh?" Aang looked over his shoulder. In one quick motion, he pulled out the staff, spun it around once, and somehow caused orange, papery wings to fold out of it, transforming it into a glider.

"Ooh . . . !" Ruby drooled a little. "That's so cool!"

Aang seemed distracted looking at the glider himself.

Ruby snapped herself out of her reverie and reached behind her back. "Wanna see mine?" Without waiting for an answer, she shifted Crescent Rose into its full scythe form, dwarfing her petite body.

"Whoa!" Aang jumped backward and stared, possibly in awe and possibly in horror, either of which Ruby would consider a compliment. She stroked the mechanical blade lovingly.

"Yeah, designed it myself," she said, swinging the weapon around a few times with much more ease than ought to have been possible. "But yours is cool too. Can you actually fly with it?"

The question seemed to quell Aang's unease. "Can I?" he grinned, and took off into the air. Ruby watched, definitely in awe, as he twirled in place, did several backwards loops, and circled all the way around one of Beacon's towers. When he came in for a landing, he retracted the glider's wings and twirled the stick over his head like a helicopter blade for a moment before alighting and stowing it behind him.

"That - is - awesome!" Ruby squealed, starry-eyed. "So is your Semblance some kind of wind power?"

"I resemble a what?" said Aang.

"Your Semblance, you know . . . ?" Ruby gestured in futility.

Aang shook his head. "I don't think I do. I'm an airbender. In fact, uh . . . I'm the Avatar."

"You have a tar what?"

"The Avatar, you know . . . ?" Aang found himself repeating her useless hand movements. The two eyed each other for a long time as they tried to comprehend one another's incomprehension. The twilight had begun to fade, and soon the only remaining lights would be artificial. Unable to reach a conclusion, Aang looked distantly into the sky. After a moment, he registered what he was looking at, and this time there was no doubt that it was horror occupying his face. "Oh no . . ." he breathed.

Turning to find what he was seeing, Ruby saw only the darkening sky. The stars were not quite visible yet, but the moon was out. At the moment it appeared mostly whole, with only a couple of its detached fragments poking around the side. She looked back at Aang and got the curious feeling that he should have been hyperventilating but that the air was somehow making an exception to allow him a normal breathing pattern.

Looking back down at Ruby with a panicked expression, Aang asked, "How far are we from the north pole?"

"Um . . ."

"I have to get there! How did this happen?!" The air billowed around Aang again as he jumped, clearing Ruby's scythe and landing right at the precipice of the ledge that her team had been sitting on. Ruby stowed Crescent Rose and took a few steps closer to the strange boy, who was again staring up at the moon as though it were falling toward him. He then looked down at the water below. Apparently reaching a decision, he first took a deep breath and brought his hands down in an arc in front of him. Then he began making even stranger movements with them, though it all seemed highly coordinated. It looked like he was focusing on the water, so Ruby glanced down, and she did a double take when she realized that a column of water was slowly rising toward them. Its motion flowed with Aang's - he was obviously controlling it. Aang made the pillar sway to one side and then the other, and when he ceased his cryptic dance, it collapsed back into the surface.

Several seconds passed silently, Aang's eyes closed and breath slow. Ruby just stared in wonderment. This kid's air and water abilities were not unlike the powers granted by properly utilized Dust or some of the Semblances that her classmates possessed, but he seemed to operate under different rules than they did. More than that, he had never even heard of their rules, nor she of his. The "lion turtle" comment had been odd, but given what had now occurred, it was almost beginning to look like this boy was from an entirely different -

"I'm sorry," said Aang, turning around. "Something . . . really weird is going on here. Um - weren't you going to take me to someone?"

"Oh - right! Sorry! Um . . . follow me." Ruby headed for Professor Ozpin's office, which occupied Beacon's centermost, tallest tower. Ozpin would know what was going on here. He knew everything, right?

* * *

Aang followed the red-cloaked Ruby girl with glazed eyes, his brain working overtime but getting nowhere. At first he had felt reassured knowing that he could take as long as necessary to figure out whatever he needed to learn here - _how_ he knew that, he was less certain, but it seemed that the lion turtle had given him some information along with the bizarre, light-based transportation. He knew that he was in this place to acquire some kind of . . . something that, if utilized correctly, could allow him to end the war without having to end the Fire Lord's life - or else would finally prove to him that no such solution was possible. And he knew, somehow, that when he returned, he would arrive just in time to confront Ozai. He knew that he could trust the lion turtle. What he did not know was what he was supposed to do here, how to do it, how to find out how to do it, how long it would take, or the one that he was currently pondering: _Where is this place?_ Because between Ruby apparently never having heard of the Avatar, and the partially shattered moon that had no adverse effect on his waterbending, it was starting to look like he had been sent to an entirely different -

"Um, here it is," Ruby said. Aang had barely noticed that they had entered some kind of elevator - thinking back on it, the ride had been so smooth that he was beginning to wonder how the machines of this . . . place operated. As if responding to this thought, Ruby touched a portion of the wall and caused it to do something that Aang's eyes did not quite understand - some kind of trick of the light that temporarily gave the appearance of a translucent rectangle hovering slightly out of the wall. At first it seemed to have no effect on anything, but then it produced a male voice inviting them to come in, and the elevator doors opened before them.

They entered. The room reminded Aang somewhat of the planetarium in Wan Shi Tong's library - large metal gears were embedded everywhere, their purpose unclear. Claustrophobia was mitigated by the equally numerous windows and glass ceiling, above which more gears were visible. Matching the room's theme, the table appeared to be a glass surface with gears underneath. The single chair behind the table turned, allowing its occupant to face them.

He was a tall man with gray hair, small shaded glasses, a green scarf, and a white mug in his hand. He sipped from the last of these before speaking.

"Miss Rose. And . . ." His eyes studied Aang. The gaze did not feel threatening, but certainly analytical.

Aang bowed again. "My name is Aang, sir."

"Aang." Ozpin bowed slightly in his seated position. "To what do I owe this pleasure?"

Aang and Ruby exchanged glances, wondering how to answer the question. Ozpin sipped his beverage again.

"Well you see, Professor Ozpin," Ruby attempted, "Aang here um . . . appeared out of nowhere."

"Well, not exactly nowhere," Aang mumbled.

"And uh, he's never heard of Semblances but he can control air and water and fly around with his glider, and he says he was sent here by a giant tiger turtle -"

"Lion turtle," said Aang, dragging a hand down his face. He was conflicted about whether to blame Ruby for her rendition of the story or admit that nobody could make it sound convincing.

"And -" Ozpin held up a hand, and Ruby fell silent. The professor took another sip, and then a long pause, before speaking.

"That's quite a story. Miss Rose, thank you for bringing this matter to my attention. Would you please excuse us now?"

"Oh uh, yeah. Sorry, sir. Thank you, sir. I'll just be . . ." Ruby pointed at the elevator, laughed hollowly, and in a flash of swirling rose petals she was gone. Aang shielded his face with his arm in response to the resulting air current, but it quickly settled, and he turned back to the professor.

Taking yet another sip from his mug, Ozpin regarded the Avatar with indecipherable eyes.


	2. Chapter 2: Arrowhead & Ozpinhead

_Tell me can a heart be turned to stone?_

* * *

Aang tired of the awkward staring contest, so he spoke to this Professor Ozpin, choosing his words carefully.

"Look, I know all that sounded, well, crazy. I don't completely understand what's going on here myself. But as hard as it is to believe, some of the stuff I've seen so far makes me think . . . I'm from an entirely different world."

Aang had never before appreciated the art of sipping a beverage to make oneself seem more reasonable and others less, but Ozpin had perfected it.

"Uh, perhaps a demonstration?" Aang decided. Twirling his hands, he formed a ball of air, and then executed the tricky task of moving it beneath his foot and balancing upon it. As Aang's signature airbending move, the air scooter, it was one art that he had perfected, and he made the difficult maneuver look effortless. Perched upon the ball, he continued speaking to Ozpin.

"Where I come from, there are four nations." The Avatar frowned and corrected himself. "There _were_ four nations. The Water Tribes, the Earth Kingdom, the Fire Nation, and the Air Nomads. In each nation, there are people called benders who can, well, bend their native element. Airbenders bend air," he pointed down at his scooter, "waterbenders bend water . . ." Ozpin nodded to move him along. "And every generation, one person is born who can bend all four elements." Aang hopped off his scooter and it vanished into the surrounding air; he then flicked his hand to produce a small flame, and swirled it around above his head. "This person is called the Avatar." The flame died off as he lowered his hand to point at his chest. "Right now, that's me. As the Avatar, it's my responsibility to maintain balance in the world." Aang spotted the broken moon outside the window behind the professor. "At least . . . my world."

"Forgive me for saying so," said Ozpin, "but you're just a child."

"I know," Aang sighed. "I wish that was the worst of my problems."

Ozpin raised an eyebrow.

"A hundred years ago, the Fire Nation declared war on the rest of the world. And they began the war by completely wiping out my people, the Air Nomads."

Ozpin had been preparing to take another sip of his drink, but stopped at this.

"As far as I know," said Aang glumly, "I'm the last airbender."

The professor lowered his mug and closed his eyes. Then he opened them, looked at the young Avatar, and said, "I'm sorry."

Aang took a moment before continuing. "The worst part is, the Fire Lord is planning to do it again. He wants to burn the entire Earth Kingdom to the ground, and I'm the only one who can stop him. It's my _job_ to stop him."

"If that's the case," said Ozpin, "then what, exactly, are you doing here?"

Aang rubbed his eyes exhaustedly. "Well . . . I guess I'm seeking wisdom."

The professor looked deeply into his mug. "Aren't we all."

Aang took a step toward the table. "Do you even believe anything I'm saying?"

Ozpin made a quiet sound somewhere between a chuckle and a hum. Looking up, he said, "If I'm being honest with you, I'm still reserving judgment."

Aang was unsure what to make of that. He turned and walked over to one of the gear-filled mechanisms, watching it tick away for several seconds. Then he pivoted on one foot to face back at the professor.

"If you don't mind me asking, sir, who exactly are _you_?"

Ozpin nodded. "A fair question. I am the headmaster of this school, Beacon Academy. Ah . . ." He turned his chair to one side and looked out a window. "We are no ordinary school. You might see us as more of a dojo. We train fighters, whom we call Huntsmen and Huntresses."

"Well, that would explain the giant transforming scythe."

Ozpin turned back to Aang, smirking slightly. "Ruby's weapon does make quite the first impression. But you'll find that all of our students are similarly armed."

Aang mulled this over. "Well, Professor . . . I'm no stranger to fighting, but the Air Nomads are a peaceful people. To us, all life is sacred. I'm even a vegetarian."

"That must make it difficult to live the life of a warrior."

Aang sighed and hung his head. "That's really why I'm here. See . . . I've been fighting against the Fire Nation for a while now, but I've always managed to avoid taking anyone's life. As the Avatar, I'm meant to inspire hope and unity, not to encourage destruction. But what the Fire Lord's doing . . ." He looked up, meeting the headmaster's gaze. "It didn't really hit me until Zuko asked me about it. I always enter a fight thinking it can end in escape or capture, avoiding death. But the Fire Lord won't stop. Frankly, he's out of his mind. And with Sozin's Comet, he'll be so powerful, trying to subdue him will be almost impossible." Aang realized then that he was even dancing around saying the words. He took a deep breath and continued, "Everyone I talk to, even my own past lives, are telling me that I have to kill him. I have to end the Fire Lord's life if I want to end the war." The Avatar's hands clenched into fists, which he used to cover his eyes before swinging them down in anger, creating bursts of wind on either side of him. "And it goes against everything I was taught by the monks! How can violence be the answer to ending violence?! I know he's a monster, and the world would be better off without him, but it's just not _right_!"

Aang's voice echoed throughout the room, momentarily drowning out the churning noises of the surrounding gears. When relative silence had finally returned, Professor Ozpin sipped from his mug before speaking.

"Moral stances such as these," he said, and paused. "Well. Either you're an extraordinarily talented actor, or your beliefs are sincere."

Aang walked back over to the side of the table opposite Ozpin. "I'm sorry."

"Don't apologize for valuing life."

"That's not what I meant."

Ozpin smirked again. "Just making sure." Then his expression turned grave. "If everything you've told me is true, Aang . . . Ah, first I must rephrase an earlier question. How did you come to be in _this_ world?"

Aang scratched behind an ear. "Well, I met an animal we call a lion turtle. I think he might be the last one alive. Anyway, I asked him what I should do . . . and he sent me here. Don't ask me how. But whatever he did, he also . . . I know, somehow, that the reason I'm here is to find the answer to my question. Once I do, I'll return to my world, and face the Fire Lord."

Ozpin once more looked into his beverage as though it were his own soul. "I was afraid you would say something like that."

"What - do you mean?"

"You've told me about your world, Aang. Let me tell you more about mine. In this world, there are monsters." He raised his head and met Aang's eyes. "Not men with evil ambitions, although we have those too. There are beings in this world that we call the Creatures of Grimm. These creatures have existed for as long as we can remember. And though their origins are unclear, their purpose is not: they kill people. Only people, not animals or each other. They are creatures of pure darkness, whose only goal is our destruction. That is why we train to be Huntsmen and Huntresses: to fight, and kill, the Grimm."

 _Since beginningless time, darkness thrives in the void . . ._

"We kill them because we have to. If you spare a Grimm's life, it will only return stronger, smarter, and more deadly than before. Failure to kill them only, inevitably leads to them killing more innocent people. It's us or them. That adorable little girl who brought you up here?" Ozpin nodded toward the elevator. "She's killed hundreds."

Each use of the word "kill" felt like a hammer driving a stake into Aang's heart. He had lost any awareness of what he was doing. Was he still standing? Leaning on the table? Curled up on the floor?

"This being the case," Ozpin continued, "if you asked whether or not you must kill someone, and you were sent to this world to learn a lesson . . ."

Aang became aware of tears streaming down his cheeks. Moving a hand up to wipe at them, he found that he had, in fact, been gripping the table for support.

It was a while before anything else was said. The young Avatar had no idea how much time had passed, or how many tears. Eventually, though, the strange office reformed around him. Drying his face on his sleeves, he found the strength to look back up at the headmaster.

"The thing is, Professor . . ." he said, his voice cracking on the last word. He sniffed and cleared his throat before proceeding. "Um, the thing is . . . I don't think that lines up with what the lion turtle told me."

Ozpin sipped his drink again. "And what was that?"

Aang found himself able to repeat the ancient one's words perfectly. "The true mind can weather all the lies and illusions without being lost. The true heart can tough the poison of hatred without being harmed. Since beginningless time, darkness thrives in the void, but always yields to purifying light."

The professor attempted to take another sip, only to find his mug empty. After staring at it for a long moment, he said, "A bit cryptic, but clearly wise. I'll say this. The last thing to do when searching for wisdom is to jump to conclusions."

Aang nodded, not entirely reassured.

Ozpin stood up, revealing for the first time how much he towered over the Avatar. "The hour has grown late. I will arrange a room for you to stay in tonight. I suggest getting a good night's sleep. You've been through a lot in a short amount of time. And apparently much more already beforehand."

Again, Aang nodded silently. Ozpin tapped his table, creating more of the strange light illusions, but Aang was too tired to pay them much attention. After apparently communicating with someone through the lights, Ozpin produced a small slip of unidentifiable materials and handed it to Aang, calling it a room key. That one would probably take him a while to figure out, but sleep was calling loudly. Remembering what had happened the last time that he had neglected its call, Aang turned and headed toward the elevator, despite not knowing how to operate it either. Before he entered, Ozpin addressed him one last time.

"One more thing, Mr. Avatar," he said. Aang turned to look at him. The professor smiled and said, "Welcome to Beacon."


	3. Chapter 3: Launchtime

_You'll take flight soon, baby_

* * *

The cafeteria was as crowded as ever, but quieter than usual. This was not to say that no one was talking - rather, they were whispering. The reason was obvious.

On top of a table in the corner, a boy sat in a lotus position. His hands were balled into fists and held against one another so that the blue arrows they sported pointed toward each other. Meditation was not unheard of - but on a table, in the cafeteria, by a boy who looked too young for Beacon, who was bald and had an arrow on his head, and whom nobody seemed to know - well, that was. He stood out even more due to being the only person present who was not wearing a school uniform.

"I'm telling you," said Weiss, "the light show must be his Semblance, and he did the rest with Dust. And it's no wonder - that teleportation or whatever it is works far too slowly to be useful in battle, so he just uses it to pull pranks." She made googly eyes and waved her hands around - "Ooh, look at me, I'm from another dimension! I can fly and eat vegetables at the same time!"

"But he _can_ fly!" said Ruby. "At least, with the glider."

"I wonder what Professor Ozpin thought of him," Blake said without taking her eyes off of her book.

"I wonder about those arrows," said Yang. "I thought it was paint or something, but - do you think they're . . . tattoos?"

"Isn't he a little _young_ for that?" said Weiss, glaring at the boy.

"Hey," Yang shrugged, "I got one when I was -"

Ruby shoved a cookie into her sister's mouth. " _You're not supposed to talk about that!_ " She looked shiftily one way and then the other before removing her hand from Yang's face. Then, less anxiously, she looked back at Aang.

A wadded-up napkin collided with his shaven head and landed on the table next to him, but he had no reaction. Scanning the room, Ruby spotted Cardin and his teammates snickering. She scowled at them, but they were not looking in her direction.

"Hey, Ruby?" said a voice from her right.

Ruby turned to find a dark-skinned girl with pale green hair and ruby-colored eyes standing next to their table. "Oh," she said, "hi, Emerald!"

Emerald smiled down at her. "How are you guys doing after that whole Grimm invasion?"

"Oh, dat was nuffing," Yang said through mouthfuls of cookies.

"Yeah, psh, we're fiiine!" Ruby bragged. "Train full of bad guys, tunnel full of Grimm - all in a day's work for Team RWBY!"

"Blake and I _dragged_ you out of bed," said Weiss, pointing at the both of them in turn.

Emerald leaned down and whispered to Ruby, "I hear you know the new kid?" She tilted her head toward Aang.

"Well, sort of," said Ruby. "Not really. He, um . . . appeared . . . out of . . . thin . . . air . . . yeeaaahhhhh . . ." She shrugged. "I guess he's from another dimension or something."

"He is not," said Weiss dismissively. "And by the way, saying 'another dimension' is technically inaccurate."

"But you said it first . . ." Ruby said very quietly.

"A dimension is a two-directional plane, which is why space has three dimensions." She pointed as she spoke, "Left, right, up, down, forward, backward. If he's really from some alternate world, _which he's not_ , then his world has at least three dimensions of its own, all of which are separate from ours. Emerald, I apologize for the _ignorance_ of my - huh?" As quickly as she had come, Emerald was gone. "Where'd she go?" Weiss asked, looking around.

"Another dimension," Blake snarked.

Ruby reached for another cookie, only to find that Yang had eaten the lot.

"Wha - _Yaaang!_ "

Yang shrugged and smiled, her cheeks bulging.

Grumbling, Ruby propped her head on her hand and looked around the room, searching for an unguarded plate of sweets. Eyes falling on Cardin again, she saw him lob a fork in Aang's direction, but halfway through its arc the fork paused in midair and then rushed back at its thrower, sticking in the table an inch away from his finger. Ruby located Pyrrha; she was looking down at her breakfast, but her hand was held up slightly. As she lowered it, she caught Ruby's eye and smiled, then returned to the meal.

With a crack, something struck the cookie platter that Yang had emptied, causing Ruby and her teammates to start.

"Team RWBY," said Professor Goodwitch. "You are to come with me at once."

"We didn't do anything!" Ruby squealed.

Goodwitch pointed her crop at Ruby's nose and said, "Ozpin's orders. Come." Then she whipped the tool toward Aang and added, "You, Avatar. You too."

The table Aang was sitting on tilted forward, spilling him onto the ground. With a rush of air he was lifted to his feet, and he watched with fascination as the table righted itself again.

"I haven't got all day," said Goodwitch, tapping the crop against her hand.

As Aang and the team gathered to follow the professor, Nora's voice carried over the chatter. "Ooooooh, someone's in troublllllle!"

* * *

"Another dimension?" Cinder repeated doubtfully.

"That's what they said," explained Emerald, her expression and tone much less friendly than they had been in the lunchroom. "I don't know if it's true."

"So what's the big deal?" said Mercury, revolving slowly in a swivel chair. "If he's from some alternate world, there's no way he'll catch onto our plans."

"That's a pretty big ' _if_ ,' Mercury," Emerald said.

Cinder worked her needle and thread. "What I'm concerned about is _if_ this is an isolated incident, or if there will be more of them."

Emerald nodded. "I'll find out if this one knows."

"No," said Cinder. "I need you two for something else." Carefully, she rotated the garment that she was sewing. "Neo, darling?"

On the desk next to Cinder, a scroll was propped against the wall, and on this was displayed the image of a girl's face. Half of the girl's hair was a relatively normal brunette color while the other half was bright pink with white streaks in it, and her eyes were similarly mismatched.

Cinder looked up at the scroll and said in her usual sultry tones, "You know what to do."

The girl smiled mischievously, and then her picture vanished from the screen.

* * *

Aang stood on a cliffside overlooking a dense forest. Lined up on the ground were several flat, metallic squares - everything in this world was such a mystery to the young Avatar, including Professor Ozpin and the severe woman with the riding crop, both of whom stood before him. Ruby and her friends had gone to change clothes, which was apparently important for some reason (he guessed that it had more to do with fetching their weapons). Ozpin stood with a cane and, of course, his white mug, and greeted Aang.

"Good morning. How did you sleep?"

"Well," Aang said, "I had a lot to think about, y'know, but the bed _was_ really comfortable. There's all kinds of stuff in this world I've never seen before."

"Aang, I want to apologize. I fear I may have acted foolishly last night."

"What do you mean?"

Ozpin, naturally, sipped his beverage. "This Fire Lord, he's a man, correct?"

"Yes."

"Then he has a soul."

"Well, yes. Everyone has a soul."

"You see, that is where our worlds differ. The Creatures of Grimm do not have souls. This is why we treat their deaths with a more cavalier attitude than humans or Faunus -"

"Faunus?"

Ozpin looked him over before continuing. "Never mind. What I want you to understand is that Huntsmen and Huntresses exist to protect people, not to enforce bloody justice among them. A person killing a person is murder, in our world as, I assume, yours. The Grimm are a different matter, but I would never order one of my students to kill a human being, no matter how corrupt. Am I being clear?"

Aang nodded. "I understand, sir. But how do you know these Grimm don't have souls?"

"Aang, do people in your world have . . . Aura?"

"What, like . . . life energy?"

"That's what it is, yes, but in Remnant, we can harness it in specific ways, most often in combat. For example, until exhausted, our Aura protects us from damage that would otherwise be fatal, preventing wounds from appearing on the body and healing them if they do."

Aang shook his head. "I don't think we have anything like that. It sure would've come in handy a few times."

Ozpin took another sip of his drink. "Aura is a manifestation of our soul, so to answer your earlier question, we know the Grimm have no souls because they have no Aura."

Aang frowned. "Does that mean I have no soul, because I have no Aura?" he said, a little defensively.

"I'm sure you have a soul, dear boy," Ozpin said, "but as for Aura, I was planning, if you'll allow it, to attempt to unlock your Aura, which is something that a properly trained Aura user can do for the unacquainted. I don't know if it'll work on you, but it's unlikely that there would be any negative consequences."

The Avatar mulled this over, then shrugged. "I guess you can try."

Ozpin sipped from his mug. "Glynda, I believe you are familiar with the technique?"

The stern-looking woman, who had been silent up until this point, continued to be so as she gave Ozpin something of a disgruntled look before taking three precise steps over to Aang and placing a hand on his cheek. "Hold still," she said, and her voice was not one to inspire disobedience.

Aang closed his eyes, and after a moment he could feel the woman's life energy pushing against his own. At the metaphysical meeting point, they began to blend, and her energy formed a path through his - it was a strange feeling, but he put up no resistance, easing the process. However, as her Aura tried to trace its way through his body's natural pathways, it suddenly bumped up against something - a wall of energy, so to speak. She pushed harder, but was unable to break through.

"Something's . . . blocked," Glynda said aloud.

"My seventh chakra," Aang sighed.

"Your seventh chocolate?" came Ruby's voice from behind Aang. He turned in response, causing Glynda's hand to slip away and, thus, her Aura.

"Aang," said Yang, shooting him a finger and a wink.

"Yang," he said, smirking back. The four girls were dressed just as they had been when he had appeared in front of them. He slid his eyes to the red-clad one. "Ruby . . . I didn't catch your names?" he said to the girls dressed in white and black.

" _I_ am Weiss Schnee, heiress to the Schnee Dust Company," the girl in the white dress said in her usual haughty tone.

"I doubt he knows what that is," said the one with the black bow in her hair. Turning her head to Aang she added, "I'm Blake."

"Yes, well," snapped Glynda, "pleasantries aside - Mr. Avatar, I do believe you're capable of generating an Aura, but this blockage . . . ?"

Aang thought back to his time spent with Guru Pathik. "The chakras are seven pools of spiritual energy found throughout the body. I tried to open them all, but then a crazy lady shot me with lightning, and well . . ." He held up his hands to form a square shape. "Imagine an ant farm, with all the neat little lines going everywhere. Now imagine shooting it with lightning." He threw his hands apart and made what was supposed to be a thunder sound effect. "That's my body right now - spiritually speaking."

"I see," said Glynda. "Would you permit me to try again?"

"Uh, sure."

The same steps were followed once more, but this time, upon encountering the wall, Glynda's Aura retreated and spread out beyond Aang's spiritual pathways. This to some extent circumvented the wall, and Aang felt a strange, novel sensation.

"For it is in passing that we achieve immortality; through this we become a paragon of virtue and glory to rise above all. Infinite in distance and unbound by death, I release your soul, and by my shoulder, protect thee."

Glynda removed her hand, and Aang, only now realizing that he had closed his eyes again, opened them.

"Did it work?" Ozpin inquired.

Aang looked down at his hands and flexed them. "I'm not sure. Uh - you said it can heal wounds?"

"Yes."

Aang focused on the rather prominent wound on his back, currently masked by his clothing, where Azula's lightning bolt had connected. He tried concentrating in different ways, but none of them felt like they had any effect on the scar. Shaking his head, he said, "It's not healing, but - I do feel . . . different."

"Professor Ozpin," said Weiss, "excuse me for asking, but why exactly are _we_ here?" She gestured at her team.

Ozpin sipped his drink before responding. "You recall your initiation ceremony in the forest?"

"Of course!" said Ruby. "It's where we became the team we are today!" Weiss rolled her eyes.

Ozpin said, "Aang is the guardian of his entire world, and he was sent here to find out whether he must kill the man threatening to destroy it."

At this the girls showed off their differing ideas of the term "dumbfounded."

"As such, I thought a similar experience to your initiation would serve as a representative sample of life, and death, in Remnant."

Remnant - Aang had gathered that that was the official name for this world. He found it a bit of a strange concept, as his world had never seemed to need one, despite existing side by side with the Spirit World. He suddenly wondered if Remnant had its own Spirit World.

"Okay," said Weiss, "but still, why are we -"

"Weiss, he doesn't have an Aura," said Blake. "Imagine fighting the Grimm like that. One wrong move and you're done."

Ozpin nodded. "You are to protect him on his spiritual journey. Think of it as an extra credit assignment."

At this, Weiss pulled down a fist and whispered, "Yes!" This time Yang's eyes rolled.

Professor Goodwitch pushed up her glasses, pulled a flat device from her pocket, and said, "Students, Avatar, please take your positions."

Aang watched as Team RWBY boarded the metal platforms one by one, and followed suit. He still had no idea what they did.

Ozpin took a sip of his beverage again and said, "Good luck."

At that, Yang, standing furthest from Aang, was suddenly ejected toward the forest below, the metal thing apparently having tilted upward violently. Aang heard her letting off exhilarated shouts in the distance - she was already quite far away.

Predictably, Blake was launched next, and Aang was getting butterfly gnats in his stomach. He flew all the time, of course, with his glider and riding on Appa, and falling was almost never a real danger to a conscious airbender. But the way that these machines just suddenly -

Weiss shot forward. The sound, too, of these things was somehow unsettling to the Avatar. It was unnatural.

"Ozpin," came Glynda's voice from behind him, "I feel obliged to remind you that you can't solve every problem by launching it into the forest."

Ruby flew past Aang with a "Woohoo!" and the Avatar tensed in preparation. Though he did not look back at Ozpin, he was sure that the man sipped his drink before replying.

"Doesn't hurt to try."


	4. Chapter 4: Dessert First

_Welcome to a world of bloody evolution_

* * *

The wind whistled in Aang's ears as he soared over the treetops in what was best described as horizontal freefall. As gravity began to reassert itself, Aang chuckled at it, reached behind his back, and took hold of his staff. Extending the wings to form the glider, he situated himself appropriately and began a more controlled flight. The forest seemed endless, but he felt that it would be best not to stray too far from the school, so he went in for a landing, dodging trees as he neared the ground.

Aang loved nature, and the Emerald Forest seemed the epitome of peace. Birds fluttered here and there. Leaves fell slowly. The sun shone through the gaps in the canopy, warming the earth. Where shadows fell, dew still clung to everything.

The tranquility eased the Avatar's troubled mind, and as he strolled through the foliage, questions such as _If those girls are supposed to protect me, why did they launch us so far apart?_ and _Can I actually trust this Ozpin guy?_ were pushed to the back of his mind.

It was some time before Aang encountered anything but woodlands. When he did, it was not what he expected.

Perched on a rock at the edge of a small clearing was a girl - not one of the four who had been catapulted into the forest with him. She had the strangest hair - half brown, half bright pink with white streaks. She sat facing away from him, lightly twirling a parasol over her shoulder. After she failed to react to his presence for several seconds, Aang approached her cautiously - even in his world, little girls could be dangerous.

"Hello?"

Still she did not respond. Aang moved a little closer. "Hellooo?"

With somewhat unnecessary swings of her legs, the girl spun around to face him. Matching her hair, her eyes were different colors, one pink and one brown. She smiled at him, but said nothing.

"Uh, hello?" he said, waving. "I'm Aang . . ."

The mystery girl stood, closed her umbrella, and sauntered up to the Avatar. Aang smiled back at her, but she still did not speak, and when she was directly before him she leaned her face in toward his in a full-scale personal space invasion. Aang laughed nervously, leaning backwards a little, which only caused her to inch closer still.

"Um . . ." Aang said. "You're not a - 'Grimm,' are you?"

As Aang peered into the stranger's eyes, their two colors faded and switched places with each other. She nevertheless continued to stare at him for several long moments. All of a sudden, Aang felt a tiny rush of air that only a master airbender could have perceived, and simultaneously detected a small vibration in the earth using Toph's technique - and by the width of a hair pushed himself out of the way of the ill-intended upward swing of the girl's umbrella. Unperturbed, she used the momentum of the missed blow to spin into a twirling kick, which Aang just managed to clear with a jump.

Fighting is often described as a dance, but never was the comparison more apt, for no elemental bursts flew from the confrontation - the Avatar merely weaved between Neopolitan's complex, coordinated strikes like the memory of a dream eluding the conscious mind. But where, say, Admiral Zhao would have grown increasingly frustrated, the colorful femme fatale retained the same playful smile and demeanor as the performance went on.

"Who - are - you?" Aang asked between breaths. His opponent displayed no more desire for verbal communication than previously. Managing to gain a small amount of distance, Aang took the opportunity to lift up a chunk of the ground behind the girl and pull it toward them. Neo opened her umbrella behind her and the rock shattered against it; Aang then threw both hands forward to create a gust of wind, which caught the umbrella and sent the girl sailing into a tree. Somehow she managed to land in a perfect sitting position and crossed her legs, still smiling down at Aang.

Panting slightly, the Avatar said, "By any chance, do you have a sister named Ty Lee?"

She responded by pulling out the end of the umbrella, revealing it to double as a sheath for a small estoc. She twirled the blade into a backhand position and made to throw it at Aang.

Aang inhaled sharply through his nose and then threw a punch, and his energy extended past his fist and became a blast of fire. Neo shielded herself from this with her umbrella, and continued to do so as Aang shot several more fireballs, taking a step forward with each one. Then he reached down and made a pulling motion, and the earth underneath Neo's tree heaved toward him, tipping the tree at an angle. After a brief second of imbalance, Neo reunited her weapon and leaped off the branch, over Aang's head, executing a graceful flip and sticking the landing.

In one motion, Aang spun around and slid his foot toward the girl, sending a tremor through the ground that separated the soil into sand. Having already started toward him, Neo's foot landed in this and she slipped into a fall, but she turned this into a cartwheel and once more ended up directly in front of the Avatar, staring him in the face. This time Aang stared back with an expression of determined concetration, awaiting his opponent's next move.

Neo, of course, was smiling, but as her eyes changed colors again, they appeared to go out of focus, and her mouth dropped into a puzzled frown. Given how disturbing her endless smile had become, this was, oddly, even more frightening - and as she slowly moved her gaze upward, seemingly following something behind Aang, her own expression turned to one of fear. At that point, her irises both faded to white.

Part of Aang reminded him that this could have been a trick to catch him off guard, but her expression seemed too genuine for that, and her next move was to hop backwards and disappear in a quick flash of light, so the Avatar turned to see what she had been reacting to.

He caught only a glimpse of a shadowy figure retreating into the woods. He shot his eyes this way and that to try to discern more detail, but whatever it had been, it was gone. Still a little on edge from the fight, he turned back to the clearing, but the multicolored girl had not reemerged. He continued looking around nervously for a while, but nothing further approached him - peace had returned.

When his breathing slowed to normalcy, Aang pondered which had been stranger, the girl's attack in the first place or its abrupt conclusion. Ozpin had described the Grimm as creatures of darkness, so it was possible that the shadowy thing had been one of them, but if so, why had it fled rather than striking him in the back? They supposedly only cared about killing . . . Ozpin had seemed sure of that, but Aang himself was less so. In his world, everyone - humans, animals, and even spirits - had both light and darkness inside of them, no matter how much they might exemplify one over the other. It could be that he was in this world to learn how to kill - but was it possible that he was here to teach its people not to?

* * *

With a sound not dissimilar to gunfire, Ruby bolted through the trees, leaving a trail of red petals to mingle with the green leaves. She held her scythe at her side, the blade curving up behind her. A black snake large enough to render her bite-sized pursued her steadily, but she paid it little mind.

"Aaaaang!" she yelled. "Aaaaang, where are you?!"

A giant scorpion with bone-like armor came into view, rushing toward her from the front. Ruby lowered the angle of her scythe and pulled the trigger, firing a blast into the ground that propelled her over the Death Stalker and caused it to collide with the King Taijitu. Landing and calling upon her Semblance again, she left the two creatures in the dust, or rather the rose petals.

"Aaaaang!"

Entering a small clearing, Ruby saw someone standing before her - it was Blake. Skidding to a halt, she cried Blake's name, but before she could do more, a Beowolf bounded from a bush next to Blake and sunk its teeth into her.

Blake fizzled out of existence, and the creature had only a moment to contemplate this conundrum before she dropped from a tree and simultaneously stabbed its back with her katana and its sheath. The Beowolf growled, still alive; hearing the snake and scorpion approaching behind her, Ruby fired her weapon backwards at them and rode the recoil toward the Beowolf, then swung the scythe's blade over her head and decapitated the monster.

Blake flipped her sword into gun form and shot repeatedly at the King Taijitu, keeping it at bay, but the Death Stalker scuttled toward her. Ruby turned and blasted the scorpion's face, but its armor withstood the round. Meanwhile the Taijitu's white head reared up over its black one, preparing to strike.

"Where are the others?!" Ruby asked.

As if in response, a shotgun sound rang out from the left and Yang flew into view toward the Death Stalker, then punched its claw; the beast was diverted around Ruby and Blake by the kinetic blast fired from Yang's yellow gauntlet. The white snake head rushed down, and Yang responded by slugging it under the chin with another loud blast.

Ruby heard a crystallizing noise behind her and glanced backward; the ground had been coated in a sheet of ice, and the Death Stalker's many legs were flailing about on the slippery surface. Weiss, standing just inside the treeline, lifted her rapier and spun its revolving chamber. Carefully taking a proper stance first, she glided toward the scorpion and slid her sword underneath it, then released a fiery explosion that shattered the ice and flopped the creature into the air.

Blake flipped off the Beowolf corpse to assist Yang with the King Taijitu. Ruby stood in the middle of the chaos, looking around frantically. "Where's Aang?!"

* * *

Aang skimmed over the treetops, pursued by a black bird with a wingspan at least twice that of his glider. The bird had a bony, helmet-like growth over its luminescent red eyes, and had surprised him when he had taken to the sky to escape a pack of hunchbacked, wolf-like creatures with similar head plates. The bird dove at him, and he dropped back down under the canopy, stowing his glider.

As the bird clawed at the trees, too big to fit between them, Aang heard a squealing grunt, and turned to find something resembling a boarcupine; though it lacked a full coat of quills, it had the same white spines and menacing black appearance as most other Grimm. The hog curled and began spinning in place, and Aang pulled at the earth between them; when the creature took off in a forward roll, the rocky ramp sent it flying over Aang's head and into the bird above. Moving around the ramp, Aang bent the air out of his way as he sprinted further into the forest.

The creatures' cries grew distant, but he put some extra space between them just to be safe. Safety turned out to be more elusive, however, as when he stopped, something bulky roared and stumbled toward him out of a bush. It looked like a much less friendly version of the Earth King's pet bear, Bosco.

Aang steeled his face and let the creature rear onto its kind legs and amble toward him. Then by throwing both arms up he rose a sheath of rock out of the ground, trapping the beast within. It struggled, but Aang added an extra layer of earth around it. Then he made an air-assisted jump onto the rock behind the Grimm's head. The monster snapped its jaws, but could not manage to turn around toward him.

"Easy there," the Avatar said. Placing a hand on the back of its bony helmet, he took a deep breath. "I have to know."

The head continued thrashing, but Aang concentrated, and briefly the arrow on his hand glowed white.

"For it is in passing that we achieve immortality, uh . . . something about . . . honor and glory . . . yatta yatta . . . sit on my shoulder."

Despite the botched incantation, Aang extended his spiritual energy into the Ursa's body. He had expected to feel great turmoil - anger, sadness, bloodlust, confusion, fear, _something_ \- instead what he found was . . . nothing. His energy peered into an empty void. The creature's body mimicked life, with blood pumping and muscles flexing, but there was no light, only a hollow darkness. Spiritually, Aang felt as though he were standing on a cliff of ice, looking into a vast expanse of blank blackness - eyes open but receiving no stimulus - a starless night, where no stars even hid by their inconceivable distances, and no sun slept behind the world. Shivering, the Avatar removed his hand.

It was true. The Grimm had no souls. Aang could hardly wrap his head around the concept, but he had felt it. Alone, he was not sure that it justified slaughtering them, but combined with their ruthless, targeted behavior, he had to admit that pickings for options were slim.

Feeling somewhat drained, he left the monster trapped and walked away, holding his head in one hand.

He wandered in a daze for long enough that he no longer knew where he was in relation to the Ursa. Growing thirsty, Aang located a particularly shady spot and spun his hands in circles, slowly gathering dew off of the grass into a ball in the air. Only about a mouthful was yielded, but he felt refreshed nonetheless. The dew-water was nice and cool . . . in fact . . .

Aang realized that a chill had spread through the entire area. Rubbing his arms and scanning for the source, he thought he saw something move behind a tree. Cautiously he tiptoed forward, and beyond the tree found himself in another clearing.

Something stood there waiting for him.

It was a black figure with a horned, skull-like helmet that reached down to its nose. The figure's eyes shone bright red. It was a Grimm, but . . . it had the shape of a man.

Tall for a man, short for a Grimm, the thing stared silently at the Avatar, a slight fog seeming to condense around it. Aang was sure that it was the source of the drop in temperature, but of nothing else. Was this the figure that he had glimpsed earlier? If it was a Grimm, why did it not attack? If not, why did it look like one?

The man-Grimm slowly began making movements with its hands that Aang found somewhat familiar, though somehow - off. The fog around the thing began to collect, much as Aang had gathered the dew. But instead of one water ball, many small ones formed.

The thing clenched its fists, and the droplets solidified into ice crystals - very sharp-looking ice spears, all of which pointed in Aang's direction. Knowing what would come next, Aang focused on the ground under his feet, waiting to feel the small vibration that would signal the man-monster's attack.

When the ice shards raced at him, Aang separated his hands to redirect them, and they stuck into the trees behind. Immediately the man-thing rushed forward, and Aang rolled off to the side; the thing raked its hand against a tree, and despite lacking visible claws, left deep gouges in the bark. Aang thrust his feet down and shot a burst of wind at the specter, pushing himself up into the branches of a tree on the opposite side of the clearing in the process. The thing was thrown against the scratched tree, but needed no time to recover before dashing across the grass.

Aang dropped from the tree with his staff in hand. Opening the small tailfins of the glider, he swung the staff at the Grimm-thing and created a powerful air current that lifted it off the ground. Stomping on the ground himself, Aang pushed up a rock and shot it at the monster-thing, then followed up with a blast of fire. The fire propelled the rock forward even faster, and it crashed into the black being, once more sending it smashing into a tree trunk.

The Grimm-man stood up in the pile of rubble, and let out a deep, slow, sinister laugh that echoed around the clearing.

"It truly is you," came a voice to match the laugh.

Aang stared at the thing. Nobody had explicitly said that Grimm were unable to speak, but none of the others that he had encountered had done so, and then there was the fact that this thing appeared to have been waterbending . . .

The ghoul ran at him again, and Aang pulled up a wall of earth between them. For a moment he seemed safe; then the thing came flying over the wall, landing before him with a thud.

A half-step into its stride, the thing suddenly lurched to the side in tandem with a loud bang. Some kind of white powder had exploded against the man-creature's side. Looking for the cause of this, Aang spotted Ruby kneeling in a tree, holding her partially-folded scythe close to her face and peering down it at the monster. As the thing gathered itself, something attached to a black ribbon struck it in the back; Aang saw Blake standing on top of the earth wall, and when she pulled on the ribbon, the man-Grimm was yanked up toward her. Just under the top of the wall, a white glyph appeared against the rock, then faded to black; the man-monster stopped in midair when it reached the height of the glyph, apparently drawn toward the wall. As Weiss ran out of the treeline, Yang exploded into the air from behind the wall and landed on top of it next to Blake. Bending down and winking at the Grimm-thing, Yang punched it downward as the glyph vanished, just in time for the shadow-thing to be impaled on Weiss's upward-held rapier.

Weiss glared at Aang and said, "Were you even trying to find us?"

With much cracking of vertebrae, the upside-down man-shaped Grimm rotated its head to point its burning eyes toward Weiss.

"Pest," the thing said, "you can't kill something that doesn't live."

Weiss shrieked, lowered her sword, and released another explosion of flame, pushing the two of them apart.

"Did it just _talk_?" said Yang from above.

Ruby fell from the tree and, with a burst of rose petals, arrived next to Aang.

"Are you okay?" she asked.

"I'm fine," Aang said.

The thing slithered to its feet and crickety-cracked its head in Aang's direction. It laughed again before speaking.

"Raava," it said, "you bear a new face."


	5. Chapter 5: Grimmlock

_From shadows / We'll reclaim our destiny_

* * *

"Whova?" said Aang. "I think you have me confused with -"

"I know an Avatar when I see one," the thing said, its red eyes shining more intensely. "After all, I was the world's first Dark Avatar."

Aang's eyes widened. " _Dark_ Avatar?"

"Until _you_ took that away from me!"

The thing raised its hands, and with a series of sickening wooden cracks, water was torn from inside two trees on either side of the earth wall. One stream of water rushed up to Blake and Yang, and the other slammed into Weiss before changing direction to wash over Ruby. When both pairs of girls were held against the sides of yet more trees, the water froze, trapping them in chunks of ice.

"I WAS A GOD!" the thing roared as it ran at Aang again. He whipped up a strong wind, but it only slowed the creature's approach, and when it was close enough, it clawed at him, forcing him out of his stance and thereby disbanding the gale. With it gone, the thing was face-to-face with Aang in an instant. "But you made it clear, only you are allowed to have that power."

"I don't know what you're -"

Aang ducked as the thing tried to grab his throat, but its other hand succeeded in clutching the front of his robe. It lifted him off the ground and held his eyes up to its own.

"I care not for this meaningless shell, Raava. I will destroy _you_. _Again!_ "

Behind them, the ice holding Blake and Yang exploded; Blake dropped behind the wall while Yang fired another gauntlet blast, the recoil of which held her against the tree. The Grimm-thing threw Aang over its head in her direction, but the blast did not hit Aang nor the monster: it struck the ice around Ruby and Weiss, freeing them as well. Yang pushed off the tree and caught Aang in midair, landing on the wall once more.

"You alright?" she asked, setting him down.

"I think so."

" _Vermin!_ " screeched the thing. "You will all -"

Blake rounded the wall just as Ruby and Weiss rushed the specter, and the three of them held their weapons aloft as they surrounded it. Aang and Yang looked down from above. The thing slowly shifted its menacing stare from one of them to the next.

"Aang, what is this thing?" Ruby asked.

"I don't know!" Aang said. "But it's acting like it's from my world . . ."

"It should have been _my_ world!" said the shadow-thing. It tried to leap toward Aang, but he pushed it to the ground with a burst of air. Ruby followed up with another shot from her weapon, which threw the thing against the wall, and then Blake and Weiss jumped in, slashing the monster repeatedly - whenever it tried to dodge one blade, it was stricken with the other. Where it was cut, rather than blood, particles of black energy flowed from its form. The girls finished with simultaneous downward slices, leaving the thing appearing as little more than a black cloud.

For a few seconds, it seemed that it might be over. Then three pillars of blackness rushed out from the cloud, engulfing Weiss, Blake, and Ruby. Yang fired two punch-blasts down at the thing, but the only result was a fourth stream shooting up and taking hold of her. The black miasmas applied pressure, attempting to crush the four girls as they flailed around.

Aang's brow furrowed. "Enough!" he shouted, and in quick succession he unleashed four blasts of fire, each of which hit one of the black tendrils in its midsection and severed it; as the tendrils dissolved into nothing, Aang pointed his hands forward and down, and the entire wall of rock on which he stood leaned over and dropped on top of the smoky remains of the black figure, cracking in the center where they met.

Each of the girls landed on their feet somewhere around the fallen wall. Once more, it seemed for a moment that the thing had been beaten, but then wisps of black energy began snaking their way out of the cracks in the stone. Slowly, the smoke combined to recreate the man-shaped Grimm body.

Ruby pointed her scythe backwards, fired it, and landed right in front of the beast. Swinging the scythe around, she hooked its blade against the back of the thing's neck.

"Wait!" said Aang. "This thing isn't just a Grimm. It might have a soul."

"But Aang," said Yang, "it wants to kill you!"

"I know," the boy said. "But remember why I'm here. If that thing's from my world, then that has to by why the lion turtle sent me here. I have to stop it, but there might be another way."

"Technically," said Weiss, "if it was telling the truth about not being able to die, then another way might be the only way."

Aang was a bit thrown when he could find nothing about her statement that he could take as an insult apart from a minor correction to his grammar.

"Be careful, Aang," Blake said as the Avatar air-jumped onto the rock next to Ruby. Aang thought he saw the bow on Blake's head twitch for some reason, but it was probably just the breeze.

Ruby kept her eyes on the black figure as Aang raised his hands toward it. The creature made no attempt to stop him. Aang placed one thumb on the thing's skull-helmet and one on its pitch-black chest - the same two points where the lion turtle's claws had touched him.

"You know what you're doing, right?" Ruby asked.

"Nope," said Aang with a slight grin. Then he closed his eyes. "For it is in passing that we achieve immortality . . ." He trailed off, concentrating.

The arrow tattoos on Aang's hands briefly glowed white . . . then faded to black. The Grimm figure's body rippled and writhed, and then collapsed into what looked like a wriggling mass of tar, with just the plated head retaining a distinct shape. Ruby took a step back as the dark mass wrapped itself around Aang's body, also leaving just his head sticking out.

"That can't be good," Yang said.

"We have to do something!" said Weiss, starting toward the mass.

"No!" said Ruby. "We might hurt Aang!"

Aang's eyes began to glow with a bluish-white light. His head tilted back, his mouth opened, and three beams of light shot skyward. The Grimm head also leaned back, and beams of what could only be described as black light flickered into existence alongside Aang's. The bluish-white radiance then crawled down Aang's face, covering all that could be seen of his body. The monster's head did not change in appearance.

* * *

Aang's spirit floated alone surrounded by an inky black fog. Whichever way he looked, there was only darkness. He tried to move, but it was impossible to tell if he was getting anywhere. He felt another presence, but he was unable to discern whether it was all around him or it lurked behind the murky veil, circling him like a vulture. He had the sense that the light of his spirit was keeping it at bay, but he also felt its intense desire to move in and extinguish his light. Trying in vain to spot the presence, he called out into the dark.

"Hello?"

* * *

"We can't just stand here!" said Weiss. "There must be something we can -"

A low growl turned her attention away from the light show. A Beowolf had emerged from the trees. Red circles behind it gleamed in pairs, growing closer.

On the other side of the clearing, an Ursa crashed into view. It was followed by two Boarbatusks. More Grimm started showing themselves from every direction.

As the girls gathered around the black mass enveloping Aang, Blake said, "If I had to guess, I'd say this thing is giving off a lot of negative energy."

Yang cocked her gauntlets, releasing spent shells. "Then we know what we need to do."

Ruby brandished Crescent Rose. "Team RWBY, protect the Avatar!"

* * *

Aang could see the shadowy fog swirling as the something swam back and forth, trying to find a gap in his spirit's glow.

"Whoever you are," Aang said, "I know you're angry. I don't know what happened to you, but -"

There was a sound like a liquid swarm of bees buzzing as it flowed through a rusty pipe. Then a voice floated around him, " _Come out and play, Raava._ "

Aang felt a powerful burst of anger forced into him. His spirit thrashed against nothing, but after a timeless moment, the anger retreated, then bubbled up everywhere.

" _Raava!_ " said the dark voice. " _What is this wall that protects you?_ "

Aang shook his head. "I don't understand what you -"

" _The Avatar State!_ " boomed the entirety of the black fog. " _Enter it!_ " The fog became like a hurricane, with Aang in the eye. " _Bring forth Raava so that I may end her!_ "

"I can't," said Aang simply. "My seventh chakra is blocked."

The darkness boiled around him, and then, slowly, began to move inward.

* * *

It was yesterday's Grimm invasion all over again. On the upside, they had only one innocent person to protect, apart from themselves. On the, admittedly more in-your-face, downside, they were the only team there fighting what seemed like just as many Grimm in a much smaller space, and of course there was the man-Grimm doing _something_ that might very well render the upside moot. But until they could thin the horde, those concerns would have to wait.

Ruby landed on the back of an Ursa and swung her scythe under its neck. The beast struggled to buck her off, but she waited until the barrel of her weapon was pointed at a Beowolf before pulling the trigger, removing the Ursa's head with the recoil. The Beowolf was pushed backward into a flurry of slices from Blake's sword, and ultimately reduced to kibble. Blake wasted no time in jumping out of a shadow clone as a second wolf lunged at her from behind, and the Grimm had barely clawed at the copy before it was sent flying through it by a punch in the back from Yang. Before crashing into a tree, the wolf sailed past Weiss, who dueled a Death Stalker's tail with her rapier. Spotting a Nevermore preparing to dive at Aang, Weiss sidestepped a strike from the tail, ran up it like a ramp, leaped into the air, conjured a white glyph from which she made a second jump, and stabbed the bird through the wing. The Nevermore was sufficiently distracted from the Avatar, but began circling the clearing with Weiss still clinging on.

"Not this again!" she said. As she was flown past Ruby, she added, "I blame you!"

Ruby was busy pushing her scythe against a Boarbatusk's namesake tusks. As the bird approached Yang, she punched away two Beowolves at once, then threw both fists down and propelled herself into the air, landing on the bird's back. Ruby blasted the boar into the resulting hole in the ground.

"Ruby!" Blake shouted. She stood next to Aang, and Ruby looked up just in time to catch her folded sword, thrown with the ribbon attached.

With a toothy grin, Ruby held her scythe out to the side and took off like a rocket fueled by roses. Blake held the ribbon taut and lifted it over Aang's head as Ruby looped around the clearing, slicing through Grimm of all kinds and leaving, along with their corpses, a ring of red petals in her wake.

Atop the Nevermore, Yang bashed and Weiss slashed, but a cry alerted them to a second bird swooping in. Weiss rose her blade and conjured a row of glyphs before her, and Yang threw a pair of punch-shots through these; the glyphs amplified the blasts, and when each struck one of the wings of the incoming bird, large ice crystals sprouted, weighing the Grimm down and sending it plummeting. Turning back around, Weiss held her rapier downward above their ride's skull-plate, and Yang punched the hilt of the sword, driving it into the bird's head like a nail.

Below, Ruby pointed her scythe backwards and down, pulled the trigger, and let go of Blake's weapon; after whirling through the air, she stabbed her blade into the chest of the second, ice-covered Nevermore. Both birds struck the ground at the same time, on opposite ends of the clearing, and collapsed lifeless.

* * *

The black storm pressed in at Aang's spirit from every direction. Aang tried to keep it away, but its anger and hatred were overwhelming. The dark fog grew thicker, and wisps of it reached toward him, pushing through his willpower. When the first one touched his ethereal arm, he felt a sting of emotional rather than physical pain, but it was strong nonetheless, and the shock opened the way for more smoke to slither in. The blue glow of Aang's spiritual form began to fade as more darkness wrapped around him and pierced his soul. The boy fought, but the thing diminished his light until only his face remained.

* * *

As Ruby cut one of the claws from a Death Stalker, she noticed the clearing darkening. At first she thought that a cloud was passing in front of the sun, but she caught a glimpse of Aang and did a double take, blocking a strike from the scorpion's other claw with her scythe.

The black mass was creeping up Aang's neck, slowly blocking out the light that shone from his body. It reached over his head and under his chin, starting to cover his face.

"Aang," said Ruby, "if you can hear me, don't give up!"

Weiss, battling a large Ursa covered in bony spikes, glanced toward Aang and chimed in, "If you die, we don't get extra credit, so you have to win!"

Blake flipped through the claws of several Beowolves and landed near Aang. "If you knew Weiss, you'd know that means she cares," she explained before slicing the hand off of one of the wolves.

Yang stood inside the maw of a King Taijitu, struggling to hold its jaws open. She began to speak, but the snake snapped its mouth shut. Its head then darted this way and that several times before violently disintegrating, revealing Yang surrounded by a burning golden Aura, her eyes flashing red instead of their usual purple. "Come on, Aang!" she yelled as she turned to punch the snake's other head, blasting a hole through it with a single blow. "You have to carry on our name!"

The dark slime had blotted out everything but one of Aang's eyes.

* * *

Aang's single spirit eye could see nothing but suffocating blackness whichever way it turned. The eye looked down, then closed tightly shut. The darkness encroached further, leaving just a small spark of blue.

Then a voice echoed through the fog - Aang's voice.

"I understand now. This happened before. Light and darkness. You thought you were restoring balance. But your idea of balance was chaos."

" _Who is to say that light is right and darkness is wrong?! Light had its reign! It had ten thousand years! It was my turn!_ "

"You're lying to yourself. You know it's not darkness that was wrong. It was you."

" _None of that matters now! My destiny was stolen from me! Such shall be your fate, and Raava's!_ "

"For it is in passing that we achieve immortality . . ."

" _Your time is up! Your light is out! Now, die!_ "

The darkness became complete. Nothing could be seen of Aang's spirit - or of anything at all. Time stood still.

* * *

The tar had consumed Aang's body completely, and Team RWBY looked on in horror for a nauseating moment. Then the blue-white columns burst through the top of the black creature, and the glow ran down its entire form, rising back up to cover its Grimm head. The clearing was bathed in a powerful light, and where the many Grimm throughout had been drawn to the negative energy, the radiance appeared to repel them - they lost interest in the girls and fled into the trees. The thing holding Aang slowly broke up into particles, which rose into the air and faded like dying embers. The same process occurred when the light fell on the already-dissolving Grimm corpses littering the area, leaving the clearing empty save for five people.

Aang's body gradually returned to its normal color scheme, and he stood up from his hunched position and opened his eyes. Looking around at his flabbergasted bodyguards, he took a deep breath and said, "It's over."


	6. Chapter 6: (B)Ending

_I saw a little ray of light come through_

 _The tiniest of sparks came into view_

 _And then_

 _You made me hope again_

* * *

For the third time, Yang was the one who broke the silence.

"So - how do I put this - _what just happened?!_ "

"Well . . ." said Aang, "I wasn't trying to kill him. I was trying to purify him, but there was nothing left to purify."

"But who was he?" Ruby asked.

Aang shook his head. "I'm not sure, but . . . when I was - in there, I saw fragments of his memory . . . He used to be a man from my world . . . and he fought another Avatar . . . somehow, he did - something . . . something that gave him incredible power, but corrupted his soul. He almost plunged my world into darkness, but then . . ." Aang shrugged. "The darkness yielded to purifying light. But somehow, a part of him ended up here . . . I was trying to save him, but, what he was . . ." The Avatar searched for the right words. "It was only a piece of his soul, and whatever he did to gain power, it left him . . . tainted. My light shone through, and he just . . . disappeared, like a shadow."

Yang scratched her head. "Why was he calling you 'Raava?' "

Aang shrugged again. "Maybe that was the name of the other Avatar?" As he thought about what to say next, Aang began to glow once more. This time the light was greenish rather than bluish. The Avatar looked over his hands.

"What's happening now?" asked Ruby, holding her scythe a little more tightly.

"I think . . ." Aang said, "I'm going home."

There was a pause as all five of them digested the comment. After a while, Blake spoke.

"So - what did you decide? Are you going to . . . ?"

Aang's answer was firm. "No. What I've seen here has only convinced me that Ozai does have a soul. He's bad, but his life is still sacred." The greenish light was beginning to overtake Aang's eyes and arrow tattoos.

"But . . ." said Weiss, "then how will you win?" For once, she did not sound accusatory - in fact, she may, possibly, have been concerned.

"I don't know," Aang admitted. "My chakra's still blocked, so I can't go into the Avatar State, but maybe I can do something with this Aura stuff. It doesn't work the same for me as it does for you guys, but I can feel the energy in my body now, all the time. Maybe I can . . . I dunno, bend it or something." He smiled at the four faces looking upon him as they began to fade from his view behind the greenish light. "I'm not sure how yet, but I think it'll work out."

"I hope so . . ." said Ruby quietly. The luminescence extended past Aang's body, and he became just a figure highlighted within. Looking up, Ruby added, "Bye, Aang! Good luck! We'll miss you!"

"Aang!" said Yang. "Give this guy a good non-lethal sock in the jaw from me, okay?"

"Will do." The figure performed Aang's signature bow. "Thank you all for your help. I hope I'll see you again some day." At that, the figure faded from inside the sphere of light, and the sphere itself dimmed and shrank, eventually disappearing into thin air.

Perched in a tree, unnoticed by the team, Neopolitan watched the scene unfold, smiling.

* * *

As the glow finally faded, Aang found himself standing on the lion turtle's claw. His clothes had returned to what he had been wearing when he last stood there. The claw eased toward a cliffside, and when the two touched, Aang took several backwards steps onto solid ground. As the giant hand lowered, Momo alighted on Aang's shoulder. Aang looked into the lion turtle's eyes for the last time.

"Wait for him," that immensely deep voice said to the Avatar. "He will come."

The ancient one's head began descending into the water, and Aang bowed to it again.

* * *

"You're sure?" Cinder asked.

On the scroll, Neo played up her trademark smile.

"Well," said Cinder, smiling too, "I guess this problem solved itself."

"He's gone?" said Emerald.

"Back to his own world," said Cinder, nodding.

"But what if more people show up?" Mercury asked.

Cinder, now wearing the dress that she had been sewing earlier, put away the scroll and stood. "We'll handle that if, and when, it happens. For now, we have preparations to make."

* * *

"You did it!" Sokka shouted as he emerged from the airship. He was held between Suki and Toph due to an apparent leg injury, but it had no detrimental effect on his enthusiasm. "You should've seen yourself, it was amazing! You were all like -" He made his best explosion sound effects, with accompanying arm gestures. "And the Fire Lord was all like -" He wrung his own neck and flailed his tongue, stretching vowels to their limits, and concluded by pulling down the skin under his eyes.

Suki walked over to Fire Lord Ozai, slumped as he was against the stone, and bent to examine him. "So did you - you know - finish the job?" she asked, pointing at him.

"I'm still alive," Ozai hissed in cold fury, just barely looking up. Suki quickly withdrew her hand, boggling.

"I learned there was another way to defeat him and restore balance," Aang said. "I took his bending away."

"Wow," said Toph. "Who taught you that?"

Aang imagined Ruby Rose attempting to give a fast-talking account of his time in Remnant. Someday, he supposed, he would explain the whole story to his friends, but for the moment he left it at, "A giant lion turtle."

"You have the craziest adventures when you disappear," Toph said, folding her arms and shaking her head.

 _I really do, don't I?_ Aang thought as Sokka hopped over to mock the Fire Lord.

* * *

Team RWBY sat on the same ledge that they had occupied previously. It was noon instead of twilight, but they were just as tired. One of the Atlesian dropships had arrived over the forest shortly after Aang had vanished, and the girls had hitched a ride back up to Beacon. Their attempted explanation of the light show had been largely incomprehensible, so they expected that General Ironwood would soon locate them and ask for a proper report, but for the time being they relaxed.

"Do you think he's okay?" Ruby asked her teammates.

"Well," said Weiss, "he beat that thing when we couldn't. I think he'll be fine."

Blake stared down into the water. "Being a Huntress is one thing, but imagine being his age and having to protect an entire world . . ."

"At least he found out what he needed to know," Weiss said.

"Yeah!" said Ruby. "And we learned the all-important lesson of . . . um . . ."

Yang offered, "If it looks like a Grimm and talks like a man, it might be part of a Dark Avatar's corrupted soul?"

"That doesn't seem like a very widely applicable lesson," said Blake.

Weiss waved her hand dismissively. "It's like I said. Not every story has a neat and tidy ending."

Ruby sighed and looked off into the sky. "I wonder if we'll ever see him again . . ." Then she perked up and said, "Hey, we should visit his world next time!"

"Oh yes," said Weiss sarcastically, "let's go visit another world! I know this nice portal that's right around the corner."

"Hey," said Yang, "he got here, so it must be possible. All we have to do is - find a lion turtle!"

Weiss gave her a look that could have withered a house plant instantly, but Yang smiled through it. Then she looked down in response to a growl from her stomach.

"I guess it's lunchtime," she said, and without further ado rose to the task.

The other girls agreed fervently with this notion. As they set off to sate the tremendous appetites that they had earned in their battle, Ruby paused for a moment to look back at the sky again. Then she remembered that Yang had eaten her cookies at breakfast, and overtook her sister with a burst of swirling rose petals.

* * *

 **Grate Oracle Lewot 2015**


	7. Deleted Scenes from the Sequel

**This is odd, I know, but these are a couple of deleted scenes from the sequel to this story, and I'm putting them here of all places mostly to alert all you followers to the sequel's existence. Click on my name and you'll find it easily enough (it doesn't let me put links in the story area here). As for these scenes themselves, they're both bits that I wrote while Volume 3 of RWBY was in progress, but due to the way it ended, I can no longer fit them into canon. They therefore aren't canon for my fanverse either, but I didn't want them to go to waste.**

* * *

"Okay, how 'bout this?" said Ruby.

She held both hands before her, one in a fist and one flat, and pressed them together. Then she bowed forward to about a forty-five degree angle.

"Ooh, I like that one," said Penny, and she imitated the gesture.

"You've got it!" said Ruby with a smile.

"Where did you learn that one?" Penny asked as she repeated the move.

Ruby looked to the side uncertainly, then answered, "Some kid from . . . far away." When she looked back at Penny, she was met with a pained expression.

"Ruby . . ." said Penny quietly. "Why didn't you protect me?"

"What?"

Penny suddenly threw her head back and her arms out, like a bird preparing to take flight. From everywhere, a male voice slithered into Ruby's ears.

" _Ooh_ , Polarity versus metal, hhhssh . . . that could be bad."

"No . . ." said Ruby, looking around in panic. "No - !" She took several steps toward Penny and broke into a run, but even when petals erupted behind her, she still came no closer. She could feel her feet hitting the ground, herself moving - so why -

Inevitably, gashes appeared across Penny's body, accompanied by horrible metallic squealing noises. As she was torn apart, the sky flickered from blue to rose red, and a giant black chesspiece symbol appeared just above the horizon.

" _Penny!_ "

"Ruby!" snapped a voice from Ruby's right. She stopped trying to move and looked to find Weiss standing there, glaring at her.

"What are you even doing here?! Aren't you a little young to be attending Beacon?!"

Before Ruby could respond, Weiss was pulled into the same outspread pose as Penny. In turn, before Ruby could respond to this, another voice came from her left.

"Unfortunately, the real world isn't the same as a fairy tale," said Blake, and she threw her arms out as well.

As the pieces of Penny's body clattered to the floor, giving off electrical sparks, another figure appeared behind the pile -

" _Yang!_ " Ruby shouted, reaching out for her. As she did, there was another horrendous screech, and Ruby's own arm was ripped from its socket. It landed just in front of Penny's mutilated remains, and Ruby's shoulder let forth a cascade of sparks and screws, temporarily blinding her.

When she could see again, she found two more people in front of her, arms outstretched and faces skyward: Uncle Qrow stood behind Weiss, and behind Blake was Dad.

At once, they all began breaking apart.

Another voice whispered in Ruby's ear.

"This is what happens when you hand over your trust to people who claim to be our guardians, but are, in reality, nothing more than a _helpless_ \- _useless_ \- _little_ \- _girl_."

Weiss's severed head rolled up against Ruby's foot, wires flailing from the neck. Looking up at her, it said, "You want to be a hero? Wake up! You can't even protect your friends!"

Ruby tried to cover her face, but her other arm shot off like a rocket.

"Wake up!" Weiss continued. "Ruby! _Wake up!_ "

The world crumbled around Ruby, and she found herself in bed, both arms attached, with Weiss's similarly intact body leaning over her and shaking her by the shoulders. As her vision focused, Weiss's face shifted from worry to relief.

"W - Weiss?"

"Don't scare me like that!" The reprimand was delivered with the usual authority, but an even greater amount of concern. Ruby stared blankly up at Weiss, who smiled down at her. After a moment, Weiss climbed down off of the precariously-dangling bed, and after another, she returned and, wordlessly, handed Ruby a cup of coffee in which bobbed five cubes of sugar.

* * *

Ruby slid a crumpled sheet of paper out of her pocket, unfolded it, and handed it to Yang. The blonde sister held it up with her good hand and examined it uncertainly.

"What is it, a tank?"

Ruby chortled. "No, silly, it's a design for your new arm!"

Yang looked back over the drawing more carefully. "Why does it have treads?"

"Those are scythe blades," said Ruby, zipping into position beside Yang and pointing at the paper. "And these are expansion slots for military-grade weapons, you know, in case you have to deal with something minor. And the main cannon actually fires a bunch of mini-cannons that you can fly around remotely -"

"Ruby," said Yang with a small smile, "you know how strong I am, and I don't think I could even lift this thing."

"That's the best part!" Ruby said, gesturing at the bottom of the page, where she had swirled her pencil around. "It's held up by an adjustable mini-tornado!"

"You want me to walk around with a tornado -" Yang glanced sideways and stopped when she saw Ruby's grin. Laying the paper down, she reached across her chest and pulled Ruby's cheek into contact with her own. "It's great, Ruby," she said, closing her eyes. "Thanks."

* * *

 **Oh, Volume 3.**

 **As you've probably guessed, that first scene with the nightmare was mostly written to show that Penny's use of Aang's bow in canon was a result of my crossover. Anyway, go read the sequel.**


End file.
